i hope it's, at least, simerin' :-)
other matters:
there were two Neuroscience reports in the news recently (more, of course,
but i'm pressed for 'time', and am unable to keep up with what's goin' on).
1. i caught the end of a report on ABC Evening News that discussed some
research (in tadpoles) that showed extraordinarily-dynamic branching of
neural processes. the stuff that was reported took my breath away, and if
it's sustained, it's one of the most-significant experimental results that
Neuroscience has ever produced... unfortunately, i missed all the names
associated with this research, and could find nothing on it at the ABC web
site.
2. http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/mice990901.html
this was in the news more-recently, and is also very exciting, but there's
one thing i'd like to see done before anything of this is allowed to go
forward out of the lab.
it'd be hard to do, because the test animals would have to be 100% securely
retained (it'd require setups like "Biosphere"... and the seriousness of the
repercussions, plainly, not only warrant, but require-absolutely, the
expense inherent), but i'd like to see several 'natural' habitats, with
various groups of genetically altered, and non-genetically-altered mice, and
their predators, set up... let the experiment run, and see how the 'natural'
performances of altered and non-altered mice compare.
you see, it's one thing to exist under laboratory controls, but it's quite
another thing to survive in natural habitats... things must be studied in a
way that evaluates =all= aspects of behavior against controls, and all of
the questions inherent =must= be resolved =before= anything is allowed to go
forward. and the experiments must run long-term... for thousands of years,
although i know no one, wanting to make 'profits', will agree with that.
still it's what i say. it's what Humanity deserves. (if it weren't so
serious, it'd be hilarious to experience folks invoking 'genetics' so
completely ignoring the genetic millieu that is evolution.)
it'd leave me with my jaw hanging-down if evolutionary dynamics didn't do
the same experiment a g'zillion years ago, 'choosing' the mice-genetics that
we have in the world today, because they correlate with the
most-well-rounded mouse-surviability... kapich?
at any rate, these huge, securely-contained experiental habitats =need= to
be funded =immediately=... failure to do so is to recklessly gamble with the
future of Humanity, and more... it's an outright invitation to the demise of
Humanity.
"What profits a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his life"... and
all other lives that would've entered the world over the course of
posterity?
my jaw is already hanging-down at the crazed lack of forsight in which
things 'genetic' are, presently, immersed... wake up!
where are the =complete=, evolutionary-'time'-scale, tests?
there are =none=.
this's Madness, akin to that with which Shelly enetertained us.
wake up!
K. P. Collins